Just don’t call them fascists. That would be ridiculous.
by digby
This is grotesque. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it in American politics but I might be wrong. Trump is an asinine imbecile, but now he’s got members of congress making official requests to carry out his thuggish agenda:
Eleven House Republicans sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, urging him to prosecute Hillary Clinton and more than a half-dozen current or former Justice Department officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The letter complains that the investigations into Clinton and President Trump’s campaign have been marked by “dissimilar degrees of zealousness.”
“Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately,” the House Republicans said.
The letter — which also went to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney John Huber, whom Sessions named to oversee the investigation into GOP-fueled anti-DOJ allegations — comes after the FBI raided Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, last week.
It goes on to cherry-pick certain details reported about the ongoing Russia probe, as well as other speculation and disputed accusations, to allege that crimes may have been committed by Clinton and certain DOJ officials.
They accuse Comey of leaking classified information for Trump-related memos he handed over to a law professor friend, who in turn leaked them to the New York Times, among other allegations. Lynch is accused in the letter of potentially obstructing an agency investigation, with the Republicans pointing to extremely flimsy reporting on the so-called “Uranium One” deal.
They raised the DOJ Inspector General’s report about former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to refer him for potential criminal violations. Clinton, meanwhile, is accused of potential campaign finance allegations because her campaign’s lawyer facilitated financing for the opposition research project that led to the “dossier” of Trump-Russia allegations assembled by Christopher Steele.
Among the other individuals singled out in the letter are the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who sent each other anti-Trump texts during the campaign, as well as former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and the current FBI general counsel Dana Boente. Yates and Boente get called out for their involvement vetting the surveillance warrant applications for ex-Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
We are going to depend upon Jeff Session and Donald Trump to be the calm leaders who would never consider such actions. Indeed, assuming that we don’t find ourselves in a major crisis I’d guess that Sessions and most other officials would oppose this.
It’s good that there’s no chance of a crisis, amirite? Everything’s perfectly normal and in control thank goodness.
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